"I don't know. I kind of liked the cop-by-day, hooker-by-night story...but I guess the heavy emotional angle could work too."

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Ever since the premiere of Castle on ABC, viewers have been left to enjoy the occassional arrogance of the title character, a mystery novelist paired with an alluring detective under the guise of conducting research for his new book. And while Castle's life has been thrown at us in all of its harsh clarity (full-time father / fledging, flirty author with a serious case of writer's block), little had been revealed about Detective Kate Beckett, a moody and sometimes verbose detective who often feels it necessary to engage her new partner in a week-to-week battle of wits. (Guess who almost always wins?)

That all changed tonight, when Beckett was handed a cold case (quite literally) that helped to explain exactly why she is so driven in her job. It turns out Beckett's mother was murdered on her way to meet the family for dinner one night, with her death attributed to random gang violence. With no evidence and no witnesses the police eventually stopped looking for the killer, sending her husband on a battle with the bottle he would eventually win.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I loved the moment when Beckett pointed to her dad's watch and said, "This is for the life that I saved," -- and, while clutching her mom's ring worn around her neck -- "this is for the life that I lost."

When Castle eventually went to retrieve the file to start his own investigation, I fully latched onto these characters for the first time in this series. I like that they're people -- but I love that they're flawed. And ... oh yeah ... the mystery this time around was just as enticing as ever.